[211] After he wound up the debate, and during this exciting scene, Mr. Gladstone had been quietly writing his nightly report to the Queen of the proceedings of the House, on a sheet of note-paper which he held on his knee as a desk. Lord Randolph Churchill vainly endeavoured to rouse his attention by putting up his hand to his mouth as if it were a speaking-trumpet, and shouting through it mocking taunts of triumph at the Premier.
[212] H. W. Lucy’s Diary of Two Parliaments, Vol. II., p. 478. (London: Cassell & Co.)
[213] The controversy between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Gladstone was conducted through memoranda addressed to the Queen dated the 17th, 18th, 20th, and 21st of June. For the text, see Parliamentary Report of the Times, 25th of June, 1885.
[214] The offer, it is odd to notice, was almost an unprecedented mark of Royal favour. The elevation of Mr. Disraeli to an earldom was effected in the middle, not at the end of his service as Premier, and in the moment of his triumph, not of his defeat. It is, however, worth noting that at the end of his first Administration Mr. Disraeli accepted a viscountess’s coronet for his wife. Lord John Russell was not Premier in 1859 when he became Earl Russell; in fact, his acceptance of the Foreign Office under Palmerston was supposed finally to put him in the background. Grenville, Liverpool, Wellington, Goderich, Grey, Melbourne, Derby, and Aberdeen were all Peers before they became Premiers. When Addington’s Ministry resigned early in the century, the Premier, it is true, became Lord Sidmouth. Yet it was not an earldom but only a viscountcy—a rank often conferred on ex-Ministers who have not been Premiers—that was given to him. Pitt was not actually First Lord of the Treasury—though no doubt he was the moving spirit in the Cabinet—when he became Earl of Chatham. In fact, for the Queen’s offer there was no precedent later than 1742, when Walpole—the Minister to whom her House owe their crown—was created Earl of Orford when he resigned.
[215] Mr. Gibson had been elevated to the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland under this title.
[216] “Lord Northbrook,” wrote the Times, “chose to regard the criticisms on this blundering way of keeping accounts as a personal attack on himself, and rested his defence, with more temper than lucidity, on the propriety of the expenditure incurred, which no one had thought of challenging.”
[217] The Journals of Major-General C. G. Gordon, C.B., at Khartoum, printed from the original MS. Introduction and Notes by A. Egmont Hake. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885, p. 56.)
[218] On this point see an entry in Gordon’s Journal under date the 6th of October, 1884. It was not till the 17th of May, 1884, that Lord Granville wrote enjoining Gordon to adopt “measures for his own removal and for that of the Egyptians at Khartoum by whatever route he may consider best.” But it was now too late to attempt the evacuation of Khartoum save in co-operation with a relief force.
[219] Metamneh is 176 miles from Korti, but only 90 miles from Berber, and 98 from Khartoum, from which latter places the Mahdi brought up all the troops he could spare.
[220] “A cavalryman is taught never to be still, and that a square can be broken. How can you expect him in a moment to forget all his training, stand like a rock, and believe no one can get inside a square?... The sailors were pressed back with the cavalry, and lost heavily; they get very excited, and would storm a work or do anything of that kind well; but they are trained to fight in ships, and you cannot expect them to stand shoulder to shoulder like grenadiers.”—From Korti to Khartoum, by Sir Charles Wilson, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.C.L., F.R.S., R.E., late Deputy Adjutant-General, Nile Expedition. Edinburgh (Blackwood), 1885, p. 36.